The new report claims some are even able to train themselves to use clicks as a type of echolocation to detect obstacles like bats and some birds do.

Experts from the University of Oxford and a number of American universities monitored those who were blind when born or lost their sight when very young.

They discovered their increased abilities may be down to them being able to detect variations in frequency, reports the Independent.

“For a sighted person, having an accurate representation of sound isn’t as important because they have sight to help them recognise objects, while blind individuals only have auditory information,” said study author Kelly Chang, of the University of Washington.

“This gives us an idea of what changes in the brain explain why blind people are better at picking out and identifying sounds in the environment.”

One study - published in the Journal of Neuroscience - used MRI scans to check the brain activity of blind subjects to see how they reacted to changes in frequency.

Professor Ione Fine, a psychologist at the University of Washington, said this was the first study to show these changes in the auditory cortex - the part of the brain that processes sound.

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